Loneliness among Elderly Population

Background: Old age or elderly is the final stage of the normal life span. The elderly population is facing many health problems such as physical, mental, psychological & social etc. Factors like loneliness, low self-esteem, social isolation, quality of life and several others negatively affect elderly population and increase the risk of various health problems in elderly people.Aim: This study aims to assess loneliness among elderly population and to examine possible correlations with associated demographic, social and health factors.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted, in which 200 elderly from Sirmour participated and the subjects were selected using total enumeration sampling technique. For the data collection the UCLA loneliness 20-item scale was used as well as a questionnaire with questions about demographic, social and health factors and the data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS.Results: Present study results reveals 127(63.5%) of elderly has mild level of loneliness, 44(22.0%) of them has moderate level of loneliness whereas 29(14.5%) has severe level of loneliness and no significant association was found between the level of loneliness & demographic variable.Conclusion: Results show that no significant association is present between the loneliness with demographic variable.Keywords: Loneliness, UCLA Scale.